


Uncommon Knowledge

by aderyn



Series: Compounds or Stars [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221 B, Gen, Post-Reichenbach, yes you are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-30 16:58:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“John knows the exact heft of a Browning L9A1,how to make an appearance after a bomb has gone off, how to track a dog. John knows how to re-start a heart.“</p>
<p>Death is boring. </p>
<p>Sherlock considers the depth of John’s knowledge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncommon Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

> Part of something longer (I think), but for now, it’s a 221B.

 

_There are only two_ _things that are absolute_ _realities_ _,_ _love and knowledge_ _, and you can't escape them. - Olive Schreiner_

_ __ _

 

John knows the exact heft of a Browning L9A1, how to make an appearance after a bomb has gone off, how to track a dog.  John knows how to re-start a heart.

Sherlock likes to imagine that John knows how to find him:  
  
 _Bored_ , he says.  
  
 _Well,_ says John, _that's because death is boring ;it happens to everyone. Even you can't make death unique._ (John knows how to take Sherlock in hand like nobody’s business.)  
  
 _Now if you were to come back from the dead, that would be more interesting, though you'd hardly be the first.  
_  
 _No?_ says Sherlock.  
  
 _Please don't make me get Biblical_ , John says.  
  
 _I’d prefer mythology_ , says Sherlock.  
  
 _Well the phoenix, then_ , says John. John knows his mythology.

John doesn't know that they’re a couple. Sherlock doesn't know they are either, because of course the word is wrong.  He’d say they‘re a binary--but compounds, or stars? Chiral? Not exactly. Bonded? It’s futile. John doesn’t know this, or maybe he does.

(John knows that different isotopes of the same element are given priority according to atomic mass, but he might have forgotten. It’s been quite awhile.)*

John knows him, for real, as no-one else will.

John knows that he’s dead; John knows that he’s not.

He doesn’t know which, and he has to want both.

**Author's Note:**

> *From the sequence rule for assignment of configurations to chiral centers.


End file.
